Related articles

Social services

News

World Bank push for water privatisation challenged

2 December 2013

Summary

New Bank report highlighting benefits of privatisation heavily criticised by NGOs, pointing to the impact on communities in the Philipines, left without water.

In an August report the World Bank’s water and sanitation programme and the International Finance Corporation (IFC, the Bank’s private sector arm) advocate that investment in water and sanitation should be focussed on the domestic private sector in developing countries to increase access for the poorest. The report found “this will not only improve their livelihoods but is also an enormous market potential which waits to be tapped”.

This approach has been heavily criticised by civil society organisations, including Philippine IBON International and US-based Corporate Accountability International (CAI), who have called on the Bank to stop investing in water privatisation as it fails to improve access to clean water as well as pushing up water prices. At the annual meetings of the Bank in October they called on officials “to stop promoting the privatisation of water utilities, given that it’s not working from the development perspective nor in terms of promoting the human right to water”.

IBON and CAI highlighted the case of Manila, Philippines, where the IFC advised privatisation of the city’s water system in 1997. Since then water rates have increased dramatically and “broken promises of universal coverage and better quality of service” have left many communities without water.

The Bretton Woods Project is a UK-based NGO that challenges the World Bank and IMF and promotes alternative approaches. We serve as an information provider, watchdog, networker and advocate. Our flagship publications are the Bretton Woods Observer, a quarterly critical review of developments at the World Bank and IMF, the Dispatch, a biannual analysis of the World Bank and IMF Spring and Annual Meetings, and the NewsLens, a bi-weekly roundup of key news and critical viewpoints published about the World Bank and IMF.